Writing by David Barnard
I’ve been pestering Apple for years publicly and privately about the manipulation and outright scams going on in the App Store. Apple has made some progress here and there, but overall Apple’s strictness in some areas and hands off approach in others has disproportionately rewarded bad actors while stifling conscientious developers.
This post is out of date. See the updated and expanded guide to subscription testing here: https://www.revenuecat.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-subscription-testing-on-ios
We talk about the “App Economy”, but don’t often analyze it as such. And that’s a shame. As I’ve said many times before, Apple shapes the App Store economy (and the app economy more broadly) in ways similar to how governments shape economies, and in turn influence the global economy, through tax law and other policies.
A lot of people have been asking why it took so long for Launch Center Pro to get a widget. It’s kind of a long story and I can’t share all the details, but the gist of it is that Justin and I were scared of App Review and didn’t want to risk continued development of the app after seeing the capricious App Store policy decisions Apple made just after the release of iOS 8 last fall.
As with most things in life, ad blocking is… complicated. Reductionism comes off as smug and entitled. The truth is, most people on earth benefit in some way from the current morass of annoying ads, privacy invasion, and other crap. Anyone who uses Facebook to connect with family and friends is able to do so for free because of ads and privacy invasion. And even sites that boast about memberships,…
With the cost of user acquisition being driven up, and market forces driving the value perception of most apps down, it’s tough to make the numbers work on most forms of paid app marketing. A few months ago Marco Arment released sales data on his recently released podcast app, Overcast . Having real data from a great app that converts well provides a flawed, but instructive example of how tough it…
You can build the best app in the world, the slickest website, the most engaging ads, and the perfect monetization strategy, but the very first step to making any money is getting the attention of a potential customer. Once you have that attention, a certain percentage of those potential customers will eventually pay for your app (whether directly, via In-App-Purchases, by viewing ads, or taking…
This morning Apple told James Thompson he would have to remove or drastically change PCalc’s Today Widget. Having seen the writing on the wall over the past few weeks, I sent this email to Apple executives on October 25th:
Since before the App Store even launched, indie developers have been been writing and tweeting about perceived flaws in how Apple manages it. Conversations around those posts and tweets inevitably lead to comments like: “Apple cares about customers, not developers.” or “The App Store is doing just fine, Apple said $X billion was paid to developers.” or “I only use Facebook, the App Store doesn’t…
Ever since reading “The Internet of Things and Humans” by Tim O’Reilly , I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of human interaction in automation and connected devices. Ultimately, we want computers to automagically handle as much as possible without any input from us, but algorithms will never perfectly handle every possible scenario and some things are better off with just the right touch of…
Since Apple announced app preview videos at WWDC, I’ve been thinking a lot about the implications. I may be wrong, but I’m hopeful this will be a big deal for quality apps, maybe even — dare I say it — paid apps.
An hour or so after App Links was announced today at F8, Federico Viticci asked me a couple related questions for a post he was working on. I quickly tapped out my response on my iPhone via Twitter DMs while relying heavily on Justin and Brock to fill in some of the technical details. Viticci’s post gives the full picture, but in homage to Vox’s cool idea of posting interview transcripts alongside…
Last October, Andrew Hayward interviewed me for an article that ran in the print edition of MacLife. Since it was never published online, I completely forgot about the interview. Today, the article was posted on TechLife, a subsidiary of MacLife. Andrew used several quotes from our interview, but didn’t have room for some of my longer rants. Since the topic is just as relevant today, I figured it…
From time to time I email Apple executives a “boots on the ground” view of the App Store and do my best to provide insight and contructive criticism rather than shallow complaints. Here’s my most recent email, starting with a quote from Andrew Webster at The Verge :
When I founded App Cubby in April of 2008, my vision was to create a suite of data logging apps for the iPhone. App Cubby was to be a ‘cubby’ of apps, and each app a cubbyhole for data. The name always felt a bit juvenile, but the metaphor was just too great to pass up.
Five years ago today, Trip Cubby landed in the App Store. After months of hard work, it was such a relief to finally have an app for sale. But it was also incredibly scary — I put it all on the line to build Trip Cubby. Would people find it useful? Would it actually sell? Were there any bugs that slipped through our testing?
I love debating the appropriate use of minimalism , exploring ways to make user interfaces simple without regressing to simplistic , and working within the constraints of the medium . But trying to approach design with “digital authenticity” is the furthest thing from my mind.
App Cubby didn’t have an app in the App Store on day 1, so there’s not much to reminisce about today — the 5th anniversary of the App Store launch — except the frustration of having a finished app ready for the App Store, but no developer account with which to publish the app. At the time Apple was inundated with requests for developer accounts, and even though I had requested one within hours of…
As a small indie developer trying to make my way in the App Store, I like to experiment and take risks. Having a couple experiments go horribly wrong is a pretty good indication that I really am taking some risks. And that’s a good thing. The thing about experimentation though, is that the point is to learn, not to be right. Confirmation bias isn’t just bad science — it’s bad friendship, bad…
Back in August, I wrote this :
The word beta has all but lost its meaning in the modern software industry. Gmail was in “beta” for years. Siri is still “beta” despite having shipped with tens of millions of iOS devices. And the list goes on.
I recently did an interview with Tope Abayomi for Appville Magazine and was really proud of how it turned out. With his permission, here is a re-print:
While many have written about the negative implications of Apple’s new policy regarding apps that look like the App Store, no one is talking about the potential upside — Apple seems to be inviting developers to create App Store competitors. Or, more accurately, Apple is enabling developers to build better App Store competitors, which is why they are now trying to prevent confusion.
After Amazon’s Kindle event yesterday, I tweeted something a bit snarky:
Since writing “The Sparrow Problem” I’ve felt a bit of pressure to follow it up with a grandiose piece about the future of apps. To that end, I’ve spent many hours researching, thinking, and talking to fellow app developers. Turns out, the core of what I’ve learned has been written about for years and can be summarized rather simply:
If you follow me on Twitter, you likely saw a lot of rage tweets aimed at Twitter over the past few days. I probably went a bit overboard in my frustration, but the future for 3rd party client apps is certainly not as upbeat as has been portrayed publicly. I wish I could share several of the backchannel conversations I’ve had over the past few days while rage tweeting. Suffice it to say, there are…
Late last year I wrote about the launch and subsequent fizzle of Tweet Speaker. In that post I talked about wanting to give the app a second chance and said Elfred and I were working on some newsworthy features that might help bring the app back from the dead. Thankfully, Elfred was completely swamped at his day job. Though we did work on some updates, we just weren’t able to invest the time we…
This morning I watched Kirby Ferguson’s TED talk and couldn’t help but send him a quick email:
We’ve all read stories about and been enthralled by the idea of App Store millionaires. As the story goes… individual app developers are making money hand over fist in the App Store! And if you can just come up with a great app idea, you’ll be a millionaire in no time!
There seems to be some confusion among developers as to what constitutes legal “inspiration” and actual copyright violation. Although it’s expensive to enforce and not very cut and dry , the concept of “look and feel” copyright infringement in software was recently upheld in court:
In “ Going Pro ” I outlined the reasons why Justin and I decided to keep investing in Launch Center and release Launch Center Pro as a completely new app. We spent many hours debating this prior to launch, but just a week later, we’re now willing to admit that we were wrong.
Back in December 2011 I had this great idea. Using the recently discovered Settings URLs , could Notification Center be hacked to create a widget-like experience and give quick access to Settings? After working with my friend Justin Youens on a quick prototype, the answer was an emphatic yes! As it turned out, launching other URL shortcuts via Notification Center also worked quite well.
I am, by nature, a very ambitious person, but the most important lesson I’ve learned in my four years as an indie iOS developer is to measure that ambition agaist reality. Then push just a bit further. And that lesson only cost me $100k — I call it my MBA in hardknocks.
With over 600k apps in the App Store, why do so many apps I use drive me crazy? I spend most of my time in amazing apps like Tweetbot and Flipboard , but many simple, single task apps make iOS feel like death by a thousand papercuts.
Back in August of 2011, Apple quietly noted in iOS 5 Beta 6 that it had deprecated the API used to retrieve a device’s unique identifier (called a UDID). There was a firestorm of press when it happened , but Apple didn’t start aggressively enforcing the change until just this week.
Richard Gaywood wrote a great post today on TUAW about the math of Retina displays. If you haven’t already read it, please do , it was great, and I’m not going to rehash everything he wrote. He made some great observations, but it seems as though folks are missing some of the implications.
No, really, steal these ideas:
After stirring some interesting discussion yesterday with a 2-year-old post about price deterioration in the App Store, I thought the topic worth revisiting. Much has been written about it, but most of that was done in 2008 and 2009 when the trend appeared most dire. I don’t think we’re much worse off at this point — most of the damage was already done — but I do have lingering concerns about the…
We all know that planes crash on occasion, but we fly anyway. It’s just one of those risks we take while enjoying the affordances of modern life. Most people view the internet and digital data in a similar way — hacking and other privacy concerns are the inevitable risks of living in the digital age. But I think car wrecks make a much better analogy. Sure they are inevitable, but as a driver there…
Being married to someone with a masters degree in professional counseling has its drawbacks, but also, on occasion, has benefits. Last night I came home from work quite distracted. After eating dinner and getting the kids to bed Liz asked me what was wrong. I told her nothing was wrong, I was just ruminating. So we talked for a while about human-computer interaction. Then she stopped me and asked,…
I paused a few times yesterday while reading Bret Victor’s post on the future of interaction design . While I respect his intent to inspire us to dream up new interaction methods, I think he did readers a disservice in being so dismissive of “Pictures Under Glass” interaction.
While on a long walk one afternoon in the fall of 2010, I thought about how nice it might be to catch up on Twitter while walking. Reading on a screen isn’t particularly practical, but surely someone had created an app that reads tweets aloud. Turns out there were a few in the App Store, but they were either completely broken or poorly implemented.
With the release of iOS 5 and a slew of new and updated first party apps, Apple made an incredibly bold move that has gone relatively unnoticed amid all the other hype. Many of Apple’s own iOS apps now require iOS 5. And those very apps are currently featured prominently in the App Store.
From TechCrunch:
Apple, as a proprietor of computer operating systems, has always taken security and privacy very seriously. Though some argue its operating systems benefit from “security through obscurity” the number of exploits in the wild has continued to hover at or just above 0 for both Mac OSX and iOS. That’s pretty amazing given the challenges Microsoft has historically faced, and compared to the exploits…
I’m launching Tweet Speaker on Thursday and have begun sending promo codes out to friends and acquaintances in the press. With the avalanche of pitches, press releases, and SPAM flooding their inboxes, I sometimes don’t hear back and wonder if they even saw my email or had time to redeem the promo code I sent. Apple doesn’t provide a direct method of checking the validity of…
Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about intellectual property and the underlying moral and legal issues. In blogging and tweeting about these thoughts, I’ve tended to use the word “borrow”, but at times I’ve used the word “steal” to assert the implicit moral judgment .
While watching Microsoft’s overview of Metro, its new user interface paradigm, it struck me as somewhat odd how much emphasis was placed on the removal and abstraction of user interface chrome.
I have to admit I was rather charmed watching a demo of Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablet. I bounce back and forth between my iPad and MacBook Pro quite often during the day, so merging the two into a single device looked appealing. After a few minutes daydreaming about the unification of iOS and OSX, it struck me that I don’t want an El Camino.
Upon making an acquaintance…